Dear Sugar (Celeste Oliva, standing at center) relays her wisdom to emailers played by Nael Nacer, Adrian Peguero and Kelly Chick (l to r).
The Gloucester Stage Company opened its 2021 season last week, performing Cheryl Strayed’s “Tiny Beautiful Things” outdoors on the bucolic grounds of the Windhover Performing Arts Center.
Unable to occupy its home base—East Gloucester’s Gorton Theatre—GSC pivoted to Rockport’s longtime outdoor venue for dance. Transformed with enhanced seating and an enlarged stage, Windhover makes an inviting alternative for GSC’s summer season.
GSC began the season with this stage adaptation of Strayed’s advice column, “Dear Sugar.” The “Dear Sugar” column had an online presence about a decade ago, and has since spawned multiple podcasts and this drama, which opened on Broadway in 2016 and has since been repeatedly produced.
Directed by Lindsay Allyn Cox, and starring Celeste Oliva here as Sugar, “Tiny Beautiful Things” is the not-veiled-at-all biography of Strayed. The action consists of Q&As—Sugar, at home on the computer, dispensing advice to needy emailers.
Sugar comes across as enthusiastically self-absorbed, just like her correspondents. Just as they yearn for Sugar’s sage advice; she yearns for their worship of that sage advice. Her own journey has been completed—surviving sexual abuse, divorce, loss, misadventures. Now she’s confidently prepared to tell everyone what to do, when those things happen to them.
Oliva gets Sugar right. Even though some scenarios seem rushed, and lines were muffed, Oliva never wavers from compassion. No advice turns snarky or condescending. Sugar never treats a question as dumb, never dispenses sarcastic rejoinders. She feels for her emailers, and relates to them creatively through her own personal trials.
Three actors—Nael Nacer, Adrian Peguero, Kelly Chick—play multiple roles as advice-seekers. Although they mainly serve as Sugar’s foil—tossing out heartfelt queries, and hanging on her thoughts—their versatility adds color to “Tiny Beautiful Things,” a play with no set or costume changes, with hardly any physical interaction at all.
The ultimate goal of the play is to reveal Sugar’s true name. Her steady stream of “Here’s what to do when life sucks” responses, given power through her own experiences, builds a cult following. Swayed by her advice, her questioners can’t know enough about her.
This doesn’t provide nearly enough dramatic tension to support the string of “Please help me” anecdotes, which succeed each other without building to any real climax. It’s not that Sugar is obnoxious; she’s too concerned with fame, or credibility, for that.
She remains “Sugar” throughout, only unveiling her real identity when her fans coax it out. The end-of-play revelation seems more like the “So what?” climax of a reality TV show, rather than an empathetic drama.
The set—the entire theater created on the Windhover site—impressed. Sugar’s home office—a sturdy open-framed room, decorated with unfolded laundry—led to an outdoor porch, and characters played freely through various spaces.
Costumes were Covid-casual. The blocking had sometimes an unintended formality—“Let me get to my spot and then I’ll talk”—rather than organic action.
“Tiny Beautiful Things” is the first of four productions GSC will stage at Windhover this summer. The site—a long-time residence camp for dancers—has been transformed with picnic tables, umbrellas and a refreshment booth. Audiences sat almost entirely in shaded areas on a sunny afternoon performance, and it was easy to enjoy being outdoors, rather than in a black box theater. Masks are required for audiences and staff, per union regulations. Audience members are appropriately spaced.
“Tiny Beautiful Things” runs through June 27 at the Windhover Performing Arts Center, 257 Granite St., Rockport. For tickets and information visit gloucesterstage.com or call 978 281-4433.
Keith Powers covers music and the arts for Gannett New England, Leonore Overture and Opera News. Follow @PowersKeith; email to keithmichaelpowers@gmail.com.